Here lies the boundary of a Christian Church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of scripture. Those who urge the Church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a Church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognised homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a Church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of scripture.

A Church which took such a step would thereby have ceased to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

="Maßstäbe zur kirchlichen Urteilsbildung über Homosexualität," in Beiträge zur Ethik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 99-102. ="'Einem männlichen Wesen darfst du nicht beiwohnen': Maßstäbe zur kirchlichen Urteilsbildung über Homosexualität," Zeitwende 65, no. 1 (1994): 1-4. From the latter (the original, identical to the 2004 reprint), in which this does not begin a new paragraph, and which appeals to Luther rather than the four marks: